Surat Assembly seat won unopposed: Maintainability must be checked to see whether voters can file election petitions, says Gujarat High Court | Ahmedabad News

Speaking to advocate Pankaj Champaneri, representing a host of petitioners, Justice JC Doshi said orally: “I have to check maintainability. I have to be sure (about whether a voter can file an election petition challenging his election victory and whether a losing candidate can file such a petition against a winning candidate)…Now, (I) really doubt) if such petitions are considered, all the voters will come here (court). So, on maintainability too, I will first take the assistance of the AGP (assistant government counsel).”

Kalpesh Barot, Firoz Malek and Ashok Pimple are seeking the reversal of the decision to reject the nomination paper of Indian National Congress candidate Nilesh Kumbani and, as a result, the election officer’s declaration of Dalal’s victory be annulled.

They also argued in the petition that the Election Officer could not have allowed someone to appear in the middle of the scrutiny process without issuing notices or summons. They further added that the entire process of publishing nomination papers of Congress candidates was invalid from the start.

Surat, along with 25 other seats in Gujarat, was scheduled to go to polls on May 7 in the third phase of the Lok Sabha elections. But after Kumbani’s nomination was rejected and eight other candidates withdrew their nominations, Dalal was elected unopposed on April 22.

Kumbani’s candidacy form was rejected on April 21 after three of his nominees submitted affidavits to Surat District Election Officer Saurabh Pardi, claiming that the signatures on the form were not theirs. The candidacy form of Suresh Padsala, the Congress Party’s alternate candidate in Surat, was also invalidated for the same reason.

Eight other candidates, including one from the Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP), also ultimately withdrew their candidacy.